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If you had a few days in spend in one of England's "other" cities, which one would it be? When travelling, I am motivated by urban design, transit, architecture and the arts, while shopping, food and sports are lesser attractions.
 
I've been to Liverpool and wasn't very impressed by it. Mind you, I went in 2006 and much of the Paradise St. Project was under construction. The three buildings on the Pier head are great though and the Albert Dock is a cool example of Adaptive Reuse. We never used transit since the downtown is rather compact. However, much of the downtown seems to die after dinner, with most of the stores bringing down metal shutters over the store fronts. So from an urban design perspective, it can be rather boring after dinner.

Although it isn't an option that you've provided, I'd pick Edinburgh over those three cities for both the architecture and urban design and urban planning history. Transit in Edinburgh isn't extensive, but the train from London to Edinburgh is probably one of the greatest train rides you can take in Britain, and you'll get to see some very interesting skylines along the way (Durham and Newcastle in particular).
 
Thanks jn, I am actually on my way up from London to Edinburgh/Glasgow, so looking for an intermediate few days. urbandreamer, Really? What makes it so interesting?
 
No problem. Enjoy Edinburgh, it's probably the best place I've been to in my travels. Be sure to take a ghost tour while you're there, just for the chance to go into the vaults built under the Old Town. You can catch the tours on the Royal Mile at the Tron Kirk (I think that's what it's called).

If you decide you've seen enough of Edinburgh, I'd suggest making a daytrip up to St Andrew's (the home of golf). Great little seaside village with a fascinating history. I'd move there in a second.
 
I'd second Manchester. Really enjoyed walking around the city centre, full of excellent Victorian and modern architecture.

Google Street View covers Britain, I might suggest taking a gander at all three that way.
 
With Manchester, too, Liverpool's practically at the fingertips--Birmingham being more of a standalone...
 
This thread got me thinking about visiting secondary cities and how I somehow enjoy visiting secondary US cities - even the ones that are considered to be duds - while secondary European cities don't really entice me. For example, I'd rather visit Seattle over Stuttgart, Denver over Birmingham, St. Louis over Lille

Now, in a way this doesn't make any sense. The things I prize: a downtown that is the true commercial centre of the metropolis, vibrant, walkable neighbourhoods, a rich architectural history, etc. are far more prevalent in Stuttgart than in Denver. But I always felt that these secondary cities don't distinguish themselves too much from one another, or from their countries' respective alpha cities. So while visiting Berlin is one week of mind-blowing fun, Hannover deserves a two hour jaunt through the fussgängerzone between changing trains. NA cities don't fall into this trap as readily: sure, Miami and Houston and San Diego are all auto-centric sprawls but they offer a vastly different flavour in each case.

That said, I think you'll have a lot of fun in Edinburgh. Some European secondary cities are really so culturally distinct from other places that they warrant the trip: Edinburgh, Marseilles, Munich, Napoli, etc. are places like this.
 
Just so ya'll know, you've won me over on Mchester and I'm going to spend a few days there, with one day in Liverpool. I am motivated by large cities - but the remaining list of large cities that entice me to go there is running rather low these days - Lagos and Karachi are out - and I've always been curious about the UK's secondary cities, which I've never been to. Though Edinburgh is small, I don't think of it as a secondary city in terms of attractions, really. But Manchester and Liverpool - definitely secondary.

I would like to visit more secondary US cities (especially in the North-East) but I've often found that the centrally located hotels seem really expensive and on a cost-benefit analysis they aren't worth it. But I'm continually amazed, as Hipster points out, how different they can be.

When it comes to Canadian cities I'm eager to go to anything with more than 100,000 or a provincial or territorial capital - but again, this is pretty much done for me, with the exception of Saguenay, which I'll go to some day.

urbandreamer, what an intriguing comment. With so much selection, how do you choose which smaller centres to visit? When you get to towns that size, some of what I find is that they are either touristy (stores full of witch balls) or lack much of anything, though I suppose I'm thinking of a Canadian context. Do you choose towns that you really want to visit, or just take a driving trip and sort of meander through a bunch at random?
 
In England, Scotland and Wales that's exactly what you do. Once foreign visitors get London out of their system on their first few trips, and see a few big secondary cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham on later trips - and maybe Bath or Canterbury or Winchester or York or Oxford or Cambridge etc. - they may be tempted to say they've seen it all. But rural England is an entire world unto itself. Smaller towns like Lavenham for instance, or a former market town such as Buckingham, or Wells-next-the-Sea on the north Norfolk coast, or a hundred other places that don't normally come to mind. Pick a County, rent a car, spend a couple of weeks driving round staying at B&B's or small hotels.
 
Visiting Britain and not meandering through some of the rural counties would be like visiting Toronto and judging it on the basis of a trip up the CN Tower, an hour at the ROM, a baseball game at the Dome, a stroll along Queen West and supper in Little Italy - it would be action-packed to be sure, but it would exclude all the residential neighbourhoods bounded by commercial arterial roads, and the parks, and the network of ravines which also define our metropolis.
 
Manchester is a really wonderful city... lots to see and do - just don't forget your stab vest if you're going out on the town after dark!
 
Manchester definitely, if you stay for a few days, you can easily do a day trip to Liverpool to have a look around.

likewise Edinburgh & Glasgow.
 
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